March 2024 – Lifeboat News: The Blog https://lifeboat.com/blog Safeguarding Humanity Mon, 01 Apr 2024 03:22:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 Depression treatment reverses “backwards” brain signals https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/depression-treatment-reverses-backwards-brain-signals Mon, 01 Apr 2024 03:22:52 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/depression-treatment-reverses-backwards-brain-signals

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) appears to relieve depression by correcting brain signals that are traveling the wrong direction.

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Building Molecular Circuits with DNA https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/building-molecular-circuits-with-dna Mon, 01 Apr 2024 01:26:51 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/building-molecular-circuits-with-dna

Diodes, also known as rectifiers, are a basic component of modern electronics. As we work to create smaller, more powerful and more energy-efficient electronic devices, reducing the size of diodes is a major objective. Recently, a research team from the University of Georgia developed the world’s smallest diode using a single DNA molecule. This diode is so small that it cannot be seen by conventional microscopes.

A diode is an electrical device that allows current to move through it in one direction much more easily than the other. No diode prevents 100% of current flow in one direction while allowing unlimited current in the other direction—in reality, a diode will always allow some current in both the “forward” and “backward” directions. The larger the imbalance favoring the “forward” direction, however, the better diode we have. Diodes are responsible for controlling the current in many common electronic components. Millions of diodes are embedded in a single silicon chip, and to increase the processing power of these chips, the diodes need to be made smaller.

Following a prediction originally made in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, now known as Moore’s law, scientists and engineers have been able to make smaller and smaller computer hardware by doubling the number of electronic components in a silicon chip every 18 months. These improvements in computing power are approaching the physical limits of silicon, however; when silicon components are too small, they will become unstable and their performance unpredictable.

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Brain Enhancements and Rights with Anders Sandberg and Francesca Minerva | H+ Academy https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/brain-enhancements-and-rights-with-anders-sandberg-and-francesca-minerva-h-academy Mon, 01 Apr 2024 01:25:55 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/brain-enhancements-and-rights-with-anders-sandberg-and-francesca-minerva-h-academy

This H+ Roundtable features Anders Sandberg and Francesca Minerva in a discussion on Brain Enhancements and Rights. The event took place on March 14, 2021.

The H+ Academy is an opportunity to face the world’s issues with leading thinkers of AI, Philosophy, Economics, Science and the Arts.

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Max More — Do you Like Living? Try Medical Time Travel — Cryopreservation https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/max-more-do-you-like-living-try-medical-time-travel-cryopreservation Mon, 01 Apr 2024 01:25:06 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/max-more-do-you-like-living-try-medical-time-travel-cryopreservation

Talks about Medical Time Travel and Cryopreservation.

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Quantum Gravity Breaks Causality — And You Can Compute With It https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/quantum-gravity-breaks-causality-and-you-can-compute-with-it Mon, 01 Apr 2024 01:23:53 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/quantum-gravity-breaks-causality-and-you-can-compute-with-it

Check out my course about quantum mechanics on Brilliant! First 30 days are free and 20% off the annual premium subscription when you use our link ➜ https://brilliant.org/sabine.

If you flip a light switch, the light will turn on. A cause and its effect. Simple enough… until quantum gravity come into play. Once you add quantum gravity, lights can turn on and make switches flip. And some physicists think that this could help build better computers. Why does quantum physics make causality so strange? And how can we use quantum gravity to build faster computers? Let’s have a look.

The paper on indefinite causal structures is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0701019

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#science #sciencenews #physics

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RLHF: Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/rlhf-reinforcement-learning-from-human-feedback Sun, 31 Mar 2024 23:25:32 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/rlhf-reinforcement-learning-from-human-feedback

Despite being almost a year old, this blog by Chip Huyen is still a great read for getting into fine-tuning LLMs.

This article covers everything you need to know about Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF).

#AI #ReinforcementLearning


A narrative that is often glossed over in the demo frenzy is about the incredible technical creativity that went into making models like ChatGPT work. One such cool idea is RLHF: incorporating reinforcement learning and human feedback into NLP. This post discusses the three phases of training ChatGPT and where RLHF fits in. For each phase of ChatGPT development, I’ll discuss the goal for that phase, the intuition for why this phase is needed, and the corresponding mathematical formulation for those who want to see more technical detail.

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Polar vortex is ‘spinning backwards’ above Arctic after major reversal event https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/polar-vortex-is-spinning-backwards-above-arctic-after-major-reversal-event Sun, 31 Mar 2024 23:24:50 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/polar-vortex-is-spinning-backwards-above-arctic-after-major-reversal-event

Earlier this month, a sudden atmospheric warming event caused the Arctic’s polar vortex to reverse its trajectory. The swirling ring of cold air is now spinning in the wrong direction, which has triggered a record-breaking “ozone spike” and could impact global weather patterns.

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Study: There are four types of Alzheimer’s disease https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/study-there-are-four-types-of-alzheimers-disease Sun, 31 Mar 2024 23:24:26 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/study-there-are-four-types-of-alzheimers-disease

New research suggests that there is no ‘typical’ form of Alzheimer’s disease, as the condition can manifest in at least four different ways.

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SpaceX Crew-7 astronauts share the good and bad of spending 6 months in space https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/spacex-crew-7-astronauts-share-the-good-and-bad-of-spending-6-months-in-space Sun, 31 Mar 2024 23:22:57 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/spacex-crew-7-astronauts-share-the-good-and-bad-of-spending-6-months-in-space

Andreas Mogensen was impressed by how smooth a landing it was.

The first European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut (and first non-American) to serve as a pilot on a U.S. commercial crew spacecraft, Mogensen and his SpaceX Crew-7 crewmates returned to Earth after a 197-day stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on March 12.

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OpenAI holds back public release of tech that can clone someone’s voice in 15 seconds due to safety concerns https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/openai-holds-back-public-release-of-tech-that-can-clone-someones-voice-in-15-seconds-due-to-safety-concerns Sun, 31 Mar 2024 23:22:43 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/openai-holds-back-public-release-of-tech-that-can-clone-someones-voice-in-15-seconds-due-to-safety-concerns

The AI firm will preview the tool with early testers but won’t release it widely because of the potential for misuse ahead of the election.

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